


the ending is the same every damn time

by SafelyCapricious



Series: things you find in a graveyard [11]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Canon-Typical Behavior, F/M, Multi, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-12
Updated: 2019-10-12
Packaged: 2020-12-09 14:15:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,872
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20996159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SafelyCapricious/pseuds/SafelyCapricious
Summary: When Sansa wakes with pain like she’s been stabbed and darkness spreading from between her thighs her panic is two-fold.Now she can be married. Now she can find out who her soulmate is.





	the ending is the same every damn time

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Halsey's "Strange Love", because I wanted something dramatic. 
> 
> Fictober continues. I almost missed it today! Because I went out for Jamba Juice before writing anything or posting and then we went to dinner and just...There was a lot. I'm tired. This is...almost definitely getting a second part. I just haven't figured out the best way to do that yet. Anyways, enjoy. I am 35.48% done <strike>with life</strike> with fictober.

When Sansa wakes with pain like she’s been stabbed and darkness spreading from between her thighs her panic is two-fold.

Now she can be married. Now she can find out who her soulmate is.

She thinks, for a moment, that she can delay the inevitable — delay others, at least, finding out that she’s flowered. Although, she thinks with dread, if Joffery _is_ her soulmate, as she’d prayed he would be — before — then he’ll know as soon as he meets her eyes regardless. Still, she has to try. 

It doesn’t work, of course, and she feels more stupid for having thought that anything could, possibly, go right for her than anything else. Cersei coos at her and she wishes she were dead — and then the king summons her before the throne and she knows that if he _is_ her soulmate than she’ll die. She’ll kill herself before she’ll stay his soulmate. 

She keeps her eyes lowered, carefully, on the walk there, even as she sinks into a graceful curtsey that turns into a collapse as Ser Meryn Trant kicks her in the back. 

“Look at me,” Joffery commands, the sound of a crossbow being armed, and she finds strength she didn’t know she had to look up and — 

She can’t allow any of the relief to show, that this monster is not her soulmate. “Pity,” he says, “that you didn’t get luckier.” And then he’s nodding at the men behind her and — she holds the truth that this monster isn’t for her, that she still has some possibly hope of a future, against herself as she’s beaten.

“I bet her brother’s her soulmate,” she hears, mocking, over the pain. And she hopes he’s right — a sibling soulmate isn’t unusual, she knows, and it doesn’t mean what he’s implying, for all that the Targaryans always took any soulmate bond as romantic. But if her brother is her soulmate that means she’ll never be forced to lose her heart and soul to another. 

They marry her to Tyrion days later. He’s not her soulmate either. Another relief. He doesn’t force his way into her bed, and she thinks she could like him under other circumstances. The most honorable Lannister, she thinks, privately — but he’s still a Lannister and cannot be trusted. 

Still. It could be worse and she well knows it, so she keeps her gaze down least she meet the eyes of one of the kings guard and discovers that he’s her soulmate and he demands her. Tyrion has yet to beat her bloody, and it’s a low criteria but it’s all she has, and she’d rather him over an unknown them. 

***

She’s in the garden with Margery, embroidering a rose and what are to be the lady’s new initials, when Olenna holds court over all of them. She and Margery are tucked away a bit, so she doesn’t notice immediately when someone new starts speaking to Olenna, but then she hears a masculine laugh and some sense of self preservation makes her look up. 

Sansa didn’t used to think that any unknown man was going to do her harm, but she does now — and she knows it’s better to know they’re coming. 

There’s a man and a woman standing, talking to the Queen of Thornes. She doesn’t recognize either of them, and they’re wearing fashion that’s unusual to her eyes. She takes a moment to trace the lines of the woman’s garment, before turning to observe the long vest the man seems to be wearing. He shifts and her gaze catches his and — 

She’s good, at this point, at not showing her emotions or any reactions, so when her universe bursts into color she doesn’t flinch. She continues to meet his eyes calmly, and then she goes back to look at what he’s wearing — if she looks away too quickly it would be a confession and —

She’s counting time in her head until it’s acceptable and not suspicious for her to turn away, and then she does so, going back to her embroidery. 

That almost gets a reaction out of her, as the lady who had helped her pick her thread had clearly misled her, with her rose being an awful green and the stem a soft purple. Still she continues to stitch and she doesn’t look up again until the party is breaking up. 

She has no hope that the man didn’t also see color — for all that she didn’t react, he jerked violently and she half expects him to corner her and demand bed rights before the day is done. 

***

Oberyn hates being here — here where his sister and her children were murdered, here with the people who murdered them. But he doesn’t have a choice and so here he will stay. For now. 

He’s exchanging a verbal spar with Olenna, Ellaria curled up against his side, to keep up appearances and he’s counting the moments until he can leave the Keep. 

“Where is our _lovely_ queen-to-be?” he asks, tone mocking. Let the Lannisters gossip about the animosity between the Martell’s and the Tyrell’s, they’ll never see them coming. 

Olenna snorts and waves a hand over to her left, and Oberyn, obligingly, looks. The Tyrell girl is easy to pick out, for all that Olenna has aged there are still strong similarities there — not to mention the abundance of roses on her dress would point her out, especially when her companion is wearing a dress with no decoration at all. 

The companion catches his eye. She’s looking at him and Ellaria and then she meets his eyes and — color. His world bursts into color and her hair is beautiful and glints with a multitude of colors and her eyes are light and pale and — 

All his life he’s been told the sky is blue, the sand is yellow, and a glance up tells him her eyes are blue as well but he’s not sure about her hair and — 

She continues to look at him blankly, gaze uninterested and placid, before turning back to the hoop of cloth on her lap. 

Ellaria pokes his side and he realizes his grip on her has tightened because — the girl can hardly be more than four and ten and she’s his _soulmate_? 

She didn’t respond however and — 

There are, he knows, one sided soulmate bonds and he does wonder. 

“Who is the other girl?” Ellaria asks Olenna in the silence, his lover able to follow his gaze even if she’s not sure what has caught his attention. 

He expects Olenna to scoff atEllaria, or offer another insult, but instead her mouth turns down in a frown. “The Stark girl?” she asks, and Oberyn feels his gut turn to ice. 

***

It is harder than she thought it would be, to keep her new ability to see colors a secret. Most of the clothes she has clash terribly with her hair, or even with themselves, and she wonders if it’s down to actual spite or just neglect. 

It’s harder still when she’s handed thread for her embroidery and can see the colors are wrong but she cannot say anything. No lovely stitching will save the fact that she is making a brown rose with a grey stem. But she will make it and smile while she does.

Sansa cannot let anyone know. If they know then they’ll need to find out who her soulmate is. And they’ll force her to marry him, even at the dissolution of both of their marriages. She cannot imagine a man would want to leave a wife who had looked like that woman, not when he was touching her as such in public, and she can only imagine how he would make her pay for forcing his hand. 

Better the enemy she knew, for now at least, until she can get away. 

But no one is asking — no one is trying to trick her into it like they were immediately after she met Joffery’s eyes, in case it be a one-sided soulmate bond. 

Which means it’s clear he doesn’t want her either. 

She knows he saw color, he jerked violently and then stared far too intently at her, especially when Margery was right at her side and would, by rights, be the better focus of his attention. 

He’s probably found out who she is, by now, the daughter and sister of traitors, and even if he wasn’t married and clearly in love he wouldn’t want her anyways. 

Sansa tries to tell herself it’s a relief that her soulmate doesn’t want her.

Most of the time she even believes it. 

***

A small body collides hard with hers, when she’s turning the corner on her way to the Godswood and they both go crashing to the ground. Sansa lands on her side, a place that’s still bruised and it takes a moment for the pain to settle so that she can breathe and see her surroundings again. 

There’s a maid — not one she recognizes, maybe from the kitchen, who is hovering, hands hesitating “Oh my lady, I am so sorry, I’m so sorry can I help I don’t —“

“I’m fine,” Sansa says, trying to smile through the pain, as she gets to her feet as gracefully as she can. “Are you alright?” 

The girl turns ashen and Sansa sees that there are small packets of paper with two different colored strings tied around them all over the flagstones at their feet. “The maester is going to kill me,” she says, stricken, before crouching down and trying to tidy the piles. 

It’s clear the girl can’t see colors, but she’s trying to go by shade of gray and is being mostly unsuccessful — Sansa can understand, she’d been shocked to discover that one of her dresses she thought was one color was, in fact, both green and red. It also clashes horribly, but she tries not to think about that part too much. 

“What’s wrong?” she asks, because obviously she shouldn’t be able to see the color differences to see the apparent problem. 

“The package with the blue sting, he said, was to go in food — while the package with the green string should only be applied topically and should definitely not be ingested and my lady doesn’t see color either and oh, gods, I’m going to _poison _her and I’ll be punished and they might whip me and —“

Sansa’s heart lurches, but she still looks around beforekneeling quickly next to the girl. Her hands move quickly to sort the packages, all of the ones with the blue string she places in a pile by the girl’s left knee, the ones with green by her right. “Those are blue — for food, those are green — for skin.”

The girl looks up wide eyed with wonder breathes “Thank you m’lady.” 

And Sansa says, “I have to go,” and immediately continues on her way to the Godswood. 

*** 

If soulmates weren’t solely in the purview of the gods, Oberyn would think that Doran had a hand in this. 

He’d come to kill the killers of his sister. Of his niece. Of his nephew. 

But the more he learns of his soulmate, bits and pieces from here and there, the more he thinks he’s come here to save her. 

**Author's Note:**

> Come say hi [on tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/capriciouswrites) and ask me questions and stuff. It makes me happy. 
> 
> Definitely not edited enough. Definitely needs more. But just accept it as it is for now, because it's what I've got for you.
> 
> Thanks for taking the time to read, let me know what you thought and I hope you enjoyed!


End file.
